MLB Notes: Latest On Drew, Scout View On Tejada, Astros DFA Wallace

As usually is the case, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe had a well-packed article on Sunday that is well worth a read for you baseball diehards.

Cafardo said that there was a lot of pressure put on Alex Rodriguezto withdraw his lawsuit against the union according to one prominent player. “It didn’t go over too well and Alex heard about it a lot. Nobody ever understood it. He did the right thing by dropping it.”

Of course, A-Rod also dropped his suit against Major League Baseball, and someone close to him says he is planning to accept his suspension, sit out the year, rest that hip, and come back strong.

On the free agent front, and more importantly for those of you who want your daily Stephen Drew fix, Cafardo has this for you:

The Mets remain the best bet. Even though there’s a sentiment he may return to the Red Sox, that has been dampened lately. Agent Scott Boras continues to indicate that he’s speaking to “multiple” teams concerning Drew’s availability. Drew still receives text messages from his Red Sox teammates who hope he returns.

Like most of you, I can’t wait for this saga to end one way or another. But I’m still clinging to my September prediction that he will re-sign with the Red Sox.

I don’t know why the names of Nelson Cruz and Kendrys Morales keep popping up on Mets threads, but for those of you who are interested Cruz is getting closer and closer to becoming a Seattle Mariner, while Morales is getting a long look from the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In case you missed it….

How many of you were surprised to see former Top 10 BA Prospect Brett Wallace get DFA’d by the Astros on Thursday? That’s why you have to take these rankings with a grain of salt. Remember all the howls that the Cardinals were nuts for trading Wallace, their number one prospect, for a rental in Matt Holliday? And of course they then re-signed him to a a mega-deal that following offseason.

That’s what he says…

Mike Puma of The Post spoke with a MLB Executive and he says that Mets will begin spring training looking strikingly similar to the team that last year finished 74-88, third in the NL East.

“The way it stands today, without anymore additions, they might be a little short of .500.”

His contention was that that the Mets essentially replaced Matt Harvey and Marlon Byrd with Colon and Granderson, assuming a big rebound from injury from Grandy. But then all else is the same.

Scout’s Honor

Here’s what a major league scout had to say about the Ike Davis and Lucas Duda logjam at first base: “I like Duda’s swing better — they are both left-handed hitters, you can’t play them both regularly. I don’t know how they are going to resolve that.”

The same scout on Tejada: “He came up young. It’s not always a straight line going forward, so there’s dips in the road along the way. He came into camp, not in great shape last year, shame on him. But he was young and the Mets have to hope he learned from that and it won’t happen again.”

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